revenge never dies

It's most illuminating to see the furor that the compassionate release of a man who did a horrible thing, spent twenty years in prison for it, and is going to die an excruciating death in less than a hundred days has created.

The very people who proclaim the superiority of our "christian" nation's morality are screeching like ex-wives over a simple gesture of humanity, a gesture that actually demonstrates the morality that so many of them preach to others but never practice in their own lives.

Yet somehow this simple display of mercy has been turned into "a victory for Khadafi," an exchange for oil, and a travesty of justice.

Well, here's some news for you. Justice is supposed to be dispassionate and is not all about retribution. We should abhor the crime, not the criminal. This man is going home to die in private agony, not to celebrate putting one over on the western world. The past is the past, let it die too. The only country in the world that has had nuclear weapons used against it is now one of our nation's most steadfast political and commercial allies. We defeated them in war and won them over by showing them the nobility and compassion of the American dream, a method that has worked time and time again throughout history.


If we want the world to believe that we have a better way of doing things, we must prove it with positive actions and not hateful platitudes. Unreasoning anger and knee-jerk vengefulness are not the hallmarks of a superior culture.